DAZN secures exclusive Serie A rights

On-demand and streaming service DAZN has won the multi-platform rights to Italy's Serie A for the next three years.

According to reports, DAZN's owner Perform Group has paid €600 million for the rights to 114 top-tier Italian football matches a season between 2018 and 2021.

The deal includes the Saturday night match at 8.30pm, and matches on Sunday at 12.30pm and 3:00pm, plus three exclusive games for every midweek round of fixtures. In addition, DAZN will show highlights of all games.

Sky acquired two packages of live TV rights with DAZN securing the third package. It's believed the pair outbid Silvio Berlusconi’s Mediaset SpA, Italy’s largest commercial broadcaster. Sky has said its matches will be available in UHD on Sky Q.

Until now, DAZN was not available in Italy but the streamer has since opened a registration page for fans. A subscription will cost €9.99 per month with every new user given a one-month free trial, no contract, and they can cancel or pause their subscription at any time.

James Rushton, CEO of DAZN, said: “The sport industry is ripe for disruption. Consumer behaviour has been transformed by technology, with streaming becoming the new norm for viewing content. DAZN suits the changing needs of today’s sports fans. Since launching almost two years ago, we have disrupted the industry in multiple markets as we change the way the world sees sport.

“DAZN is the world’s first pure sport OTT offer, which will do for sport what Netflix did for TV and what Spotify did for music. We are already the world’s largest sport broadcaster based on volume, streaming more than 100 million hours of content to fans each year. Our entry into Italy with Serie A rights is the first of many announcements we expect to make in the coming weeks as we reveal a range of premium domestic and international sports rights to create a multi-sport offering that is accessible, affordable and lives up to our fans first philosophy.”